


paper planes

by seakid



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Alternate Universe, And Noah and Kavinsky, Boys Kissing, Detention, Fluff, M/M, Mentions of Gansey, lmao idk what this is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-21
Updated: 2015-10-21
Packaged: 2018-04-27 11:10:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5045995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seakid/pseuds/seakid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I pretty much live in detention and you’re a straight A student here on your first offense. Wanna add another and skip detention with me?" au</p><p>or</p><p>Adam doesn't offer to help Gansey fix his car, Ronan offers to show Adam how to fly paper planes instead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	paper planes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nutella_enthusiast](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nutella_enthusiast/gifts).



> ~i tried~

 

It wasn’t landing another detention that annoyed him; it was Gansey’s reaction to the whole thing. The way Gansey was behaving, you’d think he’d landed suspension instead. Ronan glared at him till he dropped the argument – which was really just a boring monologue that Ronan had heard a dozen times earlier – with _Sometimes, I think you get detentions just to avoid coming along. Well, I’m going alone anyway. I’ll meet you after- no, never mind. I’ll see you at Monmouth, then? Don’t get into more trouble._

Ronan picked a ball of crushed paper and threw it down the window at Gansey as goodbye when he _finally_ left. There was no one else in the room except for the boy who’d come in 10 minutes late and looking so mortified of being here that it was laughable. He flashed Ronan a wary look and carefully chose the seat that was farthest away from him in a way that wasn’t too obvious. Ronan gave him one of his most dangerous grins in return. He knew the boy; of course, everyone knew Adam Parrish- trailer trash and top of every class except Latin. Ronan didn’t care much for either of those things. But Adam Parrish’s fragile cheekbones, his fair hands and subtle blue eyes, his dusty, worn-out appearance rendered him into something else. He looked like a boy with the terrifying ability to start wars in empty stomachs without so much as a hint of it. He looked, to Ronan, like a right asshole.

“Fancy meeting you here, Parrish,” he said, leveling him with a stare known to start fires. Ronan Lynch picked fights like Adam Parrish meticulously picked the lint off his immaculate second-hand uniforms. That was to say, Ronan Lynch chose his fights carefully, but so recklessly often that his uniform was in the exact opposite state as Parrish’s. Adam stared at him dubiously, like he didn’t understand, and then went right back to his book. Ronan was starting to realize his initial theory wasn’t all wrong.

He leaned towards him, narrowing his eyes, “Too fucking –” “We’re not supposed to be talking,” Adam cut him abruptly with such disinterest in his voice that Ronan almost forgot what he was about to say. He hadn’t even glanced up at him. “Not supposed to be talking,” Ronan mimicked, adding the Henrietta drawl to it just for effect, “What are you? 12?”

Adam didn’t look up, but Ronan glimpsed the red in his ears and sat back in his chair with a satisfied smirk. “Oh right, this must be Mr. Parrish’s first ever detention,” he scoffed, “No wonder you’ve got your panties in a twist. Don’t worry, Parrish, I practically live here, I’ll show you around.”

He proceeded to sacrifice the other paper ball that he’d made for the sole purpose of hitting Noah, by throwing it square at Adam’s head. He tipped his chair on the two back legs and watched smugly as Adam glared at him, eyebrows furrowed and all. “I don’t know what you’re trying to achieve here, but some people actually care about not getting kicked out of school,” he said.

“One detention won’t get you kicked out, Parrish, chill the fuck out.”

“Listen, I’m really not interested in getting another detention just because you don’t understand basic rules, Lynch.”

“Did you not hear what I said? Nobody gives a shit if you talk or not, the professor won’t come around to check for another hour or so.”

This seemed to confuse Adam so genuinely that Ronan had half a thought to give the guy a break. But his face quickly resolved into doubtful approach. The fact that he didn’t believe him infuriated Ronan more than it should have. “I’m not messing with you.”

“Alright,” Adam said after a glance at the door, and turned to his book.  Ronan watched him read, half out of curiosity as to why he was reading anything at all, half out of selfish purposes he didn’t care to hide. Parrish may have been a giant bore, but he was an intriguing thing. And Ronan was rather enjoying watching him fidget self-consciously under his deliberate gaze.

“So, what does a straight A student like yourself do to end up here with us low-lives?” Ronan asked after a while of silence mildly mixed with sounds of him toying with a paper plane.

Adam mumbled something incoherent as he ducked farther into his damned book.

“What?” Ronan held his plane between forefinger and thumb contemplating the right trajectory.

“I punched someone.”

This got Ronan’s attention. He lowered his plane to look. Adam wasn’t still ducking his head like he’d expected, he was looking back at him instead, waiting for a reaction. “Woah-ho, Parrish. Didn’t know you had it in you,” Ronan said, grinning. He felt a sudden sense of pride, which he questioned right away for its absurdity till it withered.  Adam cocked an eyebrow, and then broke into a smirk, “You don’t know me at all, Lynch.”

Something told him he wanted to.

~

“Kavinsky?” Ronan sounded vaguely impressed. It was hard to tell if this was because he’d assumed Adam didn’t know the first thing about punching or because it had been Kavinsky. Adam didn’t think anyone ought to be surprised that Kavinsky wasn’t getting punched every other day, what with that brilliant charm he carried around with him, but Ronan looked slightly surprised anyway. Perhaps it was the former part of the equation that surprised him; that made a lot more sense. Adam didn’t blame him though, he’d been surprised himself. Why would anyone, let alone Joseph Kavinsky, try to hit on Adam Parrish? He’d had such condescension to his tone that Adam had thought it was a cruel joke. Of course he would have thought so in any other given circumstance but it was more Kavinsky’s choice of words that had driven Adam’s fist to his face.

He regarded Ronan watching him. He did it so carelessly that it was shameful, although not to him, Adam supposed. It wasn’t rude when he stared, no, it was something else. It was as if he was pressing the buttons on Adam Parrish so hard that he would not rest till Adam Parrish was dilapidated into nothing. It was awful and thrilling all at once.

“You?”

“I told you, I practically live here.” There was something fiercely intimidating about his answers, something that made you believe for a second that your question was wrong to begin with, that the answer was always going to be right no matter how you framed the question. It hardly made any sense to Adam, this realization, but he was afraid to ask further, either way. He wasn’t sure why he was even having this conversation. But he hadn’t expected Ronan to have known his name either, so you could say it was curiosity.

“Right. Okay,” he muttered, eyeing suspiciously at the paper plane – which had seemed to appear out of nowhere – tucked between Ronan’s elegant fingers. There was nothing elegant about Ronan Lynch that was visible to the naked eye, but here Adam was, thinking impossible things. There was a reason he avoided conversations with Aglionby boys. He also needed more sleep.

Getting detention was the worst thing to have happened to him this week, but a wild part of him was relieved. Adam Parrish got detentions like everybody else. He was normal, to say the least.

He managed to read the next two paragraphs before he caught Ronan Lynch’s ruthlessly handsome face hovering in front of his face. He looked up to meet the blue eyes, just as, if not more, ruthless. Ronan had pulled the chair directly in front of his desk and was now perched on it backwards, facing Adam. Adam didn’t know what to make of this. He waited.

“So,” Ronan began, and Adam could feel dread in his fingertips. This close, Ronan Lynch looked more threatening than Adam thought anyone had the right to be. He tried not to think about the fray on his sweater. Or the way the sharp tip of Ronan’s plane was pointed directly towards his chest.

“Do you always literally hit people that hit on you?”

It was the way he said it, that challenging lift of his chin. It meant, _not many people hit on you at all, do they? Is that why you’re not familiar with the concept?_ It meant, _tell me Kavinsky was playing a joke and you fell for it._ It meant, _tell me you made a fool of yourself._ It meant, _I have nothing better to do and I’m going to humiliate you as much as I possibly can in this one hour._

Adam replied, “Why, afraid of getting hit, Lynch?” He was amazed and paralyzed if only for a second at his own audacity. He was walking on a minefield, here. But if Ronan Lynch thought he would back away from a fight, he had another thing coming. If Ronan Lynch thought Kavinsky had been joking, he had one more thing coming.

Ronan raised his eyebrows at him. Adam braced himself. But Ronan said, “No, just thought I’d like a warning before I tried.”

He said it so matter-of-factly that Adam couldn’t make out if he was being sarcastic. He didn’t realize he’d been only staring till Ronan scoffed, “Why, afraid of getting hit on, Parrish?”

 Adam ignored the fact that the flush in his cheeks was probably visible and that Ronan wasn’t blind. He said, “No, just thought you’d be the kind of guy who didn’t give a shit about warnings.”

“Of course not,” Ronan smirked, “I would have ignored it anyway.”

Adam didn’t know what to say. Ronan Lynch was flirting with him. Nobody had ever told him what to do in such situations. So, he cleared his throat nervously, hoping that all the blood that had rushed to his face would please go back to where it had come from, and dropped his eyes to the paper plane still aimed at his chest, “You going to fly that thing or what?” 

“Not here.”

“Okay.”

This was, he realized, the strangest conversation he’d ever had with anyone, till date. 

Adam fidgeted with the pages of his book. He rubbed at his ear. He glanced up at Ronan.

Ronan was frowning at the paper in his hand, examining it for fatal mistakes. To Adam, the plane looked pretty remarkable. It had the perfect folds and was just narrow enough to fly perfectly. It bore, he thought suddenly, an odd resemblance to Ronan himself.

“Hey Parrish,” Ronan had turned his gaze at him sometime while he’d been staring at the plane; he felt heat in his neck. “You want to watch it fly?”

He shrugged too quickly to hide the embarrassment. “Sure.”

There was a dangerous glint in Ronan’s eyes, and he thought, _Oh no._ His book snapped shut under him in a swift movement of Ronan’s hand and Adam couldn’t help but flinch at the sudden thud of it. Ronan was already standing up. “Wait. What did you mean – not here?”

Ronan was looking at him impatiently, halfway to the door after having slung his bag on his shoulder. _Why was he so damn fast at everything?_ Adam felt himself on his feet without thinking it, almost as if he’d caught on Ronan’s contagious haste. “Are you coming or not?”

Adam’s mind went blank for a whole minute. What was even happening here? When had he agreed to go anywhere with Ronan Lynch? “We’re in detention,” he said stupidly.

“Yes,” Ronan replied, just as stupidly. Okay, maybe his intentional stupid didn’t make it all that stupid. “So?”

 _Oh._ Adam felt a sudden turn in his stomach. He raised his eyebrows. “ _So?_ ” he laughed dryly, “I’m not skipping detention, Lynch.”

However tempting the offer was – and it was only so because Ronan Lynch wasn’t known to ask people along to watch paper planes fly wherever he planned to launch them – it was fairly ridiculous. Adam couldn’t ever skip detention, because he couldn’t ever risk getting another one. It hardly made any difference to someone like Ronan, he understood that. But it made all the difference in the world to him.

Ronan looked at him in a way that made him feel even stupider. “Jesus, Parrish. Live a little.”

“I don’t want to land another detention.”

“Two more hours alone with me? I don’t see the problem.” It was infuriating how he took everyone for granted. Infuriating how something east inside Adam’s stomach was screaming in approval.

He merely shook his head in disbelief. Ronan said irritably, “It’s just one detention. It’s not going to affect your fucking scholarship.”

Adam’s breath was a sharp inhale. He didn’t expect anyone at Aglionby to understand, Ronan was no different. Guilt sneaked up on him and embarrassment and everything all at once that made him realize he had no business standing here having a conversation with an Aglionby boy, after all. He could wear camouflage all he wished, and they could pretend he was one of them till they almost, _almost_ forgot, but it wouldn’t change a single thing because they would never understand.

All of his nerves were on the edge, but it felt ridiculous. He didn’t want this fight, anymore. He nodded once, “I’m just going to stay.” His voice was firm but so much calmer than he felt.

Ronan’s brows furrowed in confusion, “I didn’t mea– No. I meant it. It won’t affect your grades. I promise.”

He sounded – _genuine._ Adam didn’t know what to say. And he stood there stupidly – everything about Ronan Lynch made him feel so stupid. He stood there, till his nerves were numb again and till he could think. But he couldn’t think, because Ronan was suddenly in his space and something – fingers, he thought vaguely – wrapped around his wrist. Adam looked down at them. He saw a giant snake encircling his wrist, and he swallowed his heart back into his throat. _What was he doing?_

Ronan didn’t move his hand. He gave Adam’s a tug, and Adam felt an earthquake inside him, like he’d grabbed his intestines and tugged at those, instead.

“Okay,” he heard himself say. _No, no,_ _what was he doing? –_ but Ronan’s eyes widened for a second and he ran his tongue across his smug lips and Adam could feel the earthquake engulf him whole.

~

He had started with all the mind to start a fight, but something had gone wrong. It was a dream thing, this plane of his, and he hadn’t risked showing Gansey, even, let alone a stranger of a boy named Adam Parrish. But he had gone and risked it, and he didn’t understand why. It was subtle of course, and the look on Adam’s face when the plane had flown for miles off the cliff till it disappeared had been worth it, and Adam hadn’t even asked questions, just looked at him differently, but it was still invigorating to know that it was a dream thing and someone had seen it.

And everything had gone wrong, then. Because there was so much adrenaline and heavy breaths between the two of them, and awe, _so much awe_ , that it hadn’t felt out of place to have kissed him. He stumbled back, now, mouth open in a silent terror and "What are you-" and Ronan held on to his arm and kissed him again, because he didn’t know what else he could’ve done. And this time Adam’s mouth opened under his, not out of terror at all. Ronan felt his knees weaken, felt his hand sneak up to Adam’s dusty hair, and felt himself drown several hundred feet above sea-level.

He felt like his dream paper plane.

~

Adam’s eyes widened, “ _No._ ”

Ronan was frowning at him. But he wasn’t going to get _yet another_ detention just because Ronan Lynch wanted to skip it and kiss him senseless instead.

“ _No way_ ,” Adam said again, shaking his head. He had only a moment to wonder how a stupid paper plane had gotten him wound up in an annoying enigma that was Ronan Lynch and his friends and Welsh Kings or some such that came along with them, before he was pulled out of the classroom completely against his will.

 


End file.
